Kettering appoints two new members to the University Board of Trustees

Kettering University recently appointed two distinguished business leaders to three-year terms with the institution's board of trustees.

Kettering University recently appointed two distinguished business leaders to three-year terms with the institution's board of trustees. They are Dennis Dowdell Jr., president of Lanyap Square LLC., in Troy, Mich., and executive director of the National Association of Black Automotive Suppliers of Troy, and alumnae Jacqueline A. Dedo '84 vice president and general manager of Worldwide Market Operations for Motorola, based in Farmington Hills, Mich.

Dennis Dowdell Jr.

Dowdell has served in a number of leadership capacities for a wealth of successful organizations and companies, and earned recognition for consistent achievement and success in leading organizations and personnel to deliver maximum results and performance. He held the position of vice president of Human Resources for The Longaberger Co. of Newark, Ohio, a leading manufacturer of wooden baskets, pottery and fabrics that employs more than 8,000 employees and 67,000 independent sales consultants. During his tenure with Longaberger, he developed and initiated strategic initiatives for the Human Resources function. He also served as corporate vice president of Human Resources for the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Mich.,from 1991 to 1999. With Henry Ford Health System, he held full strategic, policy and quality management responsibility for all system-wide Human Resources programs, and provided senior-level human resources leadership to executive and operating management teams. He also earned recognition for saving the organization more than $750,000 each year in interim staffing expenses and was responsible for the organization's consolidation of 46 benefit plans into one flexible plan, which resulted in a $1.5 million annualized savings.

He also was co-counsel for the U.S. Dept. of Labor in Washington, D.C. for Black Lung Benefits from 1972 to 1980. He has also won a number of awards, some of which include the 1997 Best Reengineering Practices Award from the Hay Group; the1997 Outstanding Corporate Diversity Award from The Executive Leadership Council; the 1996 Outstanding Human Resources Communications Award from the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration, and the 1996 Athena Award from the National Mentoring Association. In addition, he was former vice chair and first HR chair for the National Alzheimer's Association for nine years, chair of the Black Executive Exchange Program of the National Urban League, former secretary and board member of the Detroit Urban League and a member of the Central State University Foundation Board of Directors.

His professional affiliations and recognition also include membership in the American Management Association and American and National Bar Associations. He earned a bachelor's of science degree in History and Political Science from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, a juris doctorate degree from the Cleveland State University College of Law in Cleveland, Ohio,and a doctor of humane letters from Central State University.

Jacqueline A. Dedo '84

Jacqueline A. Dedo is vice president and general manager of Worldwide Market Operations for Motorola, based in Farmington Hills, Mich., as well as a 1984 graduate of Kettering/GMI.

Her responsibilities at Motorola include leading the development of a market-based innovation process and incubation of new technologies for electronics in the automotive industry, and serving as the general manager presence in Detroit. In addition, she iscurrently working to develop the company's new Detroit-based technology center as a premier resource for the industry's needs in electronics.

Her previous assignments include serving as sales, marketing and customer enablement executive for Covisint LLC in Southfield,Mich. At Covisint, Dedo reported to the CEO, managed the department heads for Sales, Marketing and Customer Enablement, oversaw activities associated with the company's advertising and communications firm, Young and Rubican, which included the launch of the worldwide campaign to introduce the Covisint brand. Additionally, she was president of the Ford Value Team for Robert Bosch GmbH, based in Stuttgart, Germany, and served with Bosch for more than 13 years in a number of leadership capacities, including. In her capacity as president of the Ford Value Team, she reported to the chairman and CEO and led the Ford business unit, which generated more than $3 billion in sales. She was also responsible for a 30 percent increase in future sales and boosted the firm's on-time delivery rate by 20 percent.

She began her career as a co-op student with Cadillac Motor Car Co. in Flint, Mich., in 1983 and reached the level of senior validation engineer in 1986 before joining Bosch. She is currently a member of the board of directors for the Convergence Transportation Electronics Association. She earned her bachelor's of science degree in Electrical Engineering from Kettering/GMI in 1984.